


Wise Counsel

by AuthorToBeNamedLater



Category: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 16:26:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5593075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorToBeNamedLater/pseuds/AuthorToBeNamedLater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An overwhelmed Obi-Wan gets a boost from a friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wise Counsel

**Author's Note:**

> Like everyone else, I rewatched the prequels in preparation for Episode VII. I found myself thinking about how abruptly Obi-Wan had to transition from Padawan to Knight and how difficult that must have been especially trying to take on an apprentice. So, I wrote this.
> 
> I know very little of Obi-Wan's "lost and misspent youth", except for snippets I remember from reading the Jedi Apprentice books to some of my babysitting charges way back when.

Obi-Wan Kenobi absently reached toward his right shoulder to fiddle with his Padawan braid. _It’s not there,_ he reminded himself in frustration. It hadn’t been there for a week.

_A week._ The newly-minted Jedi Knight ran his hands through his hair, still cut in a Padawan’s spiky style. It just served to remind Obi-Wan that he was well out of his depth. A few short weeks ago he _had_ been a Padawan, still several months to a year away from knighthood. Now Obi-Wan was a full-fledged Jedi with a Padawan of his own.

The past several days were a blur. Obi-Wan had rushed through his Jedi Trials. He’d gone through the motions of his knighting ceremony, robotically answering “Yes” to all the questions and reciting the Jedi Code. Then he’d stood numbly as Mace Windu, acting in Qui-Gon’s place, severed the Padawan braid.

The knighting ceremony should have been a proud occasion, a rite of passage where Master and apprentice stood before the Council as equals. Instead it had been an ordeal Obi-Wan wanted to end as quickly as possible. Even Mace had looked sympathetic and almost guilty.

_What am I doing?_ Obi-Wan looked out at the small meditation garden, illuminated with the glow of the noonday Coruscant sun. He’d come here hoping to center himself and meditate a bit but it wasn’t working. So Obi-Wan sat back on the bench, stroked the beginnings of a beard that currently simply looked like he’d forgotten to shave, and stared unseeingly at the flowers before him.

_The Padawan too old for training and the Master too young for knighthood. What a pair._

His concentration was broken when a travel mug full of tea was shoved into his hand. Obi-Wan started, nearly spilling the hot liquid, and looked up to find a tallish woman with chin-length black hair standing above him.

“You’re a hot mess,” Tessara Ranyar said flatly.

Obi-Wan quirked an eyebrow at his old friend. Tessara, or “Master Tessie” as the younglings called her, had been Obi-Wan’s friend since they were both Initiates. Tessara was a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. Jedi had a reputation—sometimes deserved—as a serious and dour lot. Tessara was anything but serious or dour. She had an ever-ready smile, raucous laugh and a most irreverent streak. Obi-Wan often thought Tessara and Qui-Gon were cut from the same cloth: Both dedicated to the Order and unafraid to point out its flaws. Like Qui-Gon, Tessara would happily throw the Jedi Code out the window if she felt it necessary and thought the Order had become too rigid. Yet her judgment was sound and her honesty, though sometimes caustic, was never spoken in malice. Their lives had taken separate courses since Tessara’s knighting a year earlier, but if Obi-Wan Kenobi found himself in need of wise counsel he knew he could find no better company than Tessara Ranyar’s.

“Aren’t there signs about no food or drink in the Temple gardens?” Obi-Wan asked pointedly.

Tessara sat beside him and sipped from her own mug. “Not the first Temple rule I’ve broken,” she said with a playful smile. “Or that _we’ve_ broken, for that matter.”

“It was mostly you,” Obi-Wan said.

“Debatable.” Tessara looked at Obi-Wan’s mug. “Are you going to drink that? I’ll have you know I worked very hard to go to the commissary and buy it.”

Obi-Wan couldn’t help a little smile as he took a drink.

“What’s going on with you, Ben?”

Obi-Wan swallowed and rolled his eyes. “Are you _ever_ going to stop calling me that?”

“Probably not.” The nickname originated from when they had first met as Initiates, when Tessara had given Obi-Wan a saber burn on his arm in their first lightsaber exercise. Childrens’ sabers were designed for training, not strong enough to cut anything, but they could still leave a burn. Tessara had found Obi-Wan later in the healers’ ward to apologize, then she’d introduced herself and asked his name.

_“I’m Obi-Wan Kenobi.”_

_“Obi-Wan? That’s a funny name. I’m gonna call you Ben.”_

He’d been Ben to her ever since.

“Nothing’s wrong. Tessara. I’m fine,” Obi-Wan assured her.

“That’s a load of bantha poodoo,” Tessara returned. She gestured to his head. “I’ve seen better thought shields out of my five-year-olds. And even if I hadn’t, I know you way too well for you to put that over on me. Now what’s going on?”

Obi-Wan gritted his teeth and slammed his mental shields into place. He really was off his game.

“I’m not ready for this,” he finally blurted out.

“Ready for what?”

“This!” Obi-Wan said, as if that helped. “Any of it. Knighthood, Anakin—I’m not ready.” He shook his head. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Tessara nodded. “I know the feeling.”

Obi-Wan swiveled his head to look at her.

Tessara was still staring at the garden. “You have one Padawan. I have 50 younglings. 50 of ‘em, every single day.” She looked at Obi-Wan. “They terrify me.”

“But you’re wonderful with them!” Obi-Wan exclaimed. It was true. Whether teaching her Initiates the intricate workings of a cell or how to call an object to them with the Force, Tessara had a way with children Obi-Wan could never hope to match. As he thought about it, her misfit personality probably made her a perfect instructor for the younglings.

“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” Tessara acknowledged with a nod. “It’s a scary thing, being responsible for the next generation of Jedi.” She stared at the garden, her gaze turning faraway and reflective. “I nearly have a heart attack every time I try to teach one of them to Force push.”

Obi-Wan couldn’t resist the opportunity to tease his old friend a little. “Oh, because of the time you put Master Basmati through the door?”

Tessara looked indignant. “He told me to use all my power!”

“And direct it at the…what was it, a helmet?” Obi-Wan recounted.

“I missed! And who would have thought a seven-year-old could throw a grown man through a door?”

Obi-Wan continued chuckling at the memory of an entire classroom full of Initiates watching their teacher crash through the door. For a solid thirty seconds, the only sound in the room had been Tessara’s frightened whimpering.

Chuckling. It was a good feeling.

“I think that was my first clue I wasn’t meant for field work,” Tessara mused. “But it’s true, Ben. I’m scared to death every time I give a lesson. I might miss something, I might make a mistake. They might ask me something I don’t know. And I can’t control what my students do with what I teach them.”

Obi-Wan nodded. He was beginning to understand what Tessara meant. “Qui-Gon should be doing this. Not me.”

“Maybe that’s true,” Tessara conceded. When Obi-Wan shot her a hurt look, she continued. “But does it matter?”

“What do you mean?”

“Qui-Gon’s dead, Ben,” Tessara said. Obi-Wan bit his lip against a flood of grief. “How good he would have been doesn’t matter. This is on you now. You can train Anakin, or send him back to Tatooine.”

“I’m not sending him back to Tatooine,” Obi-Wan said automatically.

“Then you’re going to have to train him.”

Obi-Wan huffed a sigh. “It’s not that simple, Tessie.”

“It’s not? What third option do you have?”

Obi-Wan shook his head.

“Right. There isn’t one.” Tessara uncrossed her legs, sat forward, and stared at Obi-Wan like he was one of her younglings. “You’re never going to feel ready, Ben. Not now, not ever. Take it from someone who’s been at this a little longer than you. You’ll never feel ready to train someone to be a Jedi. All you can do is your absolute best. The rest you have to leave to Anakin. And the Force.”

 Obi-Wan sipped from his tea again and nodded.

“I know you, Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Tessara said quietly. “So I know you’ll give Anakin your best.”

Obi-Wan looked up at the windowed ceiling. “That I will.” _But it may not be enough._

There was silence for a moment before Tessara spoke up again. “Have you told Anakin about the time I knocked you out of the Seniors’ Lightsaber Tournament?”

Obi-Wan pursed his lips at the memory. “That was a long time ago.” He and Tessara had gotten matched in the first round of the tournament. She wasn’t Obi-Wan’s equal with a lightsaber but maybe because they’d sparred so much that she knew all his moves, she’d managed to have him on his back within three minutes. Obi-Wan would never forget lying on the mat with the wind knocked out of him, Tessara’s boot planted in his sternum and the tip of her saber thrust at his nose.

_“There’s no need for dramatics,”_ Obi-Wan remembered wheezing.

“It was _three years_ ago,” Tessara corrected. “And still one of my proudest moments.”

“I’d rather keep my focus on the here and now.” Obi-Wan turned his eyes to the garden.

“Oh, here and now, Master Qui-Gon would be so proud.” Tessara said it jokingly, but Obi-Wan could hear the sincerity under her mirth. “Well, if you ever decide to take a walk down memory lane, the holo is still in the archives—”

“I didn’t come here to relive my lost and misspent youth,” Obi-Wan interrupted.

“Lost? Misspent?” Tessara said with mock indignation. “I was a big part of that youth!”

“Don’t you have a crèche full of younglings waiting for you?” Obi-Wan turned an irritated-yet-amused stare on his friend.

Tessara smiled. “That I do.” She stood. “And you have a Padawan waiting for you.”

Obi-Wan looked down at his mug and smiled his first real smile in what felt like ages as Tessara turned to leave.

“Ben?”

“Hm?” Obi-Wan looked up.

“I meant that,” Tessara said. “Qui-Gon would be proud of you.”

And then she left, headed back to the crèche.

With renewed confidence and a lifted spirit Obi-Wan chugged the last of his tea and left the garden. He had to get back to his quarters quickly.

After all, whether he was ready or not, he had a Padawan waiting for him.

**Author's Note:**

> To all who are following my Keeping Up With The Raptors series: I am sorry for the long hiatus. I got married this year and have since moved twice, so keeping up with a serialized plot is very hard for me these days. I want to finish the series like nobody's business. However, I barely found time to write this one-shot and even now I have a dirty kitchen, laundry that needs to be dried, and dogs that need to go out vying for my attention. I love writing but don't know when I'll have a chance to commit to a series again.


End file.
